I ended up writing to Teac America support about the subject, and here is the reply: (a better reply than Gooberslot got, anyway!)

"Unfortunately, Windows 98 is NOT as stable for high speed recording (32x-40x) as Windows 98SE is. This is why the minimum system requirements state that you must have Windows 98SE or above so that you don't have any recording conflicts. After all, what you want is to be able to record without having any conflicts provided by limitations on your Windows 98 OS. Yes, the CDW512EB works fine in Win98, but this is drive more than three times slower than the CDW540E.

By the way, this is not a TEAC issue. This will be the same regardless of the High Speed 40x drive you purchase.

That is a much better answer than what I got but unfortunately still doesn't answer the question of why they won't let the firmware updater work. Updating the firmware has absolutely nothing to do with drive speed.

BTW, I think their answer is BS. I've recorded a disc at 32x just fine on my Win98 system as I'm sure you have.

I was a Plextor fan all the way until last year when I purchased my Teac CD-W540E.

I have experienced some failures with Plextor drives.. My 40X reader failed a week out of warranty. My 8x20 SCSI burner started to get flaky about 1.5 years after I bought and installed it.

I have not had any problems with the 12X10X32 Plextor scsi burner in my old system.

I bought my current drive, the Teac CD-W540E, just about a year ago. I have been using it fairly heavily without any single hint of a problem. I have used mostly TY media and burn a lot of data backup CDs as well as custom audio CDs for the car. I've never had a coaster and the burned discs read in anything I put them in. (My mid-90s Discman plays the audio CDs... this is definately a sign of a good burn - it's ultra picky!)

I run Windows 2000 and use Ahead Nero. The CD-W540E has proven itself a rock-solid performer that I can depend on. I also like the fact that I was able to get one in black, to match my case.

NightFlyer wrote:Just a note to include my experience with CD-R drives

Gooberslot wrote:Wow, talk about ressurecting a dead thread. In fact it's so dead it somehow went back in time to 1969.

He is called NightFlyer because he haunts the night, swooping in to the dead, long forgotten threads of yore, resurrecting them with his mysterious powers and making them minions in his legions of undead zombie warrior threads. They rise again to terrify the good townsfolk of CDRLabsville...